Common elder

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nickybs milton keynes, United Kingdom Apr 03, 2008

I want to buy a common elder plant for my garden so I can harvest the flowers and fruit for cordials etc. I know the latin name is Sambucus nigra, but does it matter which variety you use, i.e., could I still use 'black lace' or black beauty'. Are the flowers and fruits of these varieties also edible. If not does anyone know where I can get a common elder plant from in the UK?

Cheers

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Apr 03, 2008

If you're growing it specifically for the fruit, cultivars like 'Black Lace' and 'Black Beauty' may not be your best bet, they've been bred for their ornamental appearance, and while any fruit they would produce would still be edible, they may not have the best tasting fruit, or be optimized for good fruit production (I don't know for sure that they would taste bad, but when they are specifically breeding things for pretty leaves and flowers things like the taste of the fruit often suffers along the way because they don't care about maintaining that). I'm not sure if there are any elder cultivars that were bred more for the fruit, but those would be your best bet if anyone knows which those are. Otherwise probably the straight species would be your best bet (it'll probably be the cheapest too...'Black lace' and 'Black Beauty' are patented which tends to make plants more expensive)

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